Flatbush Town Hall
35 Snyder Avenue | also 29 Snyder Avenue | East Flatbush | built 1875
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1874
Flatbush buys a Grant Street lot and hires John Y. Culyer to plan a town hall
After Flatbush voters and those of the other Kings County towns rejected annexation to Brooklyn in November 1873, local papers began pushing for a town hall to hold court sessions, elections and public meetings. In 1874 the Board of Improvement approved a site and a building. A plot on Grant Street, now 35 Snyder Avenue, was bought, the building committee hired Culyer for the plans, and William Vause received the construction contract.
- 1875
Culyer's Victorian Gothic town hall rises with a corner tower and pointed arches
John Y. Culyer, an engineer who had worked on Prospect Park with Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designed the hall in the Victorian Gothic style. The Landmarks Preservation Commission found it somewhat like Vaux's Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village, though more modest. Red brick with buff stone trim, carved drip moldings and a corner tower with pointed-arch windows make up the exterior.
“…designed a Victorian Gothic building somewhat reminiscent of Vaux's Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village though more modest in its scale and detail.”
- 1876
The finished town hall is formally handed over to Flatbush at a large public meeting
Completed late in 1875, the hall was officially transferred by the Board of Improvement to the town authorities at a large public meeting on February 7, 1876. It served Flatbush as police headquarters and as the seat of the local court, and its grand second-floor ballroom was used for social and cultural events.
- 1887
The second-floor ballroom hosts the Erasmus Hall Academy centennial celebration
Flatbush marked the hundredth anniversary of Erasmus Hall Academy in the Town Hall's grand ballroom in 1887. The Landmarks Preservation Commission cites the celebration as one of the notable social and cultural functions held in the room.
“The grand ballroom on the second floor was the site of notable social and cultural functions, such as the celebration of the Erasmus Hall Academy centennial in 1887.”
- 1894
Annexation to Brooklyn turns the town hall into a police precinct and magistrates' court
When Brooklyn annexed Flatbush in 1894, the building became a police precinct headquarters and the home of the 7th District Magistrates Court. The police moved out in 1924, leaving only the Homicide Court, but returned in 1926, and a rear addition for the Homicide Court was built in 1929-30. The 67th Police Precinct used the building until it moved to new quarters in the fall of 1972.
- 1973
The Landmarks Commission designates Flatbush Town Hall after sixteen witnesses speak for it
At the public hearing on July 24, 1973, sixteen witnesses spoke in favor of landmark status for the town hall and two persons were recorded against. The designation report, dated October 16, 1973, called the hall one of the best of its type in New York City and an expression of Flatbush's civic pride, and designated the building and its lot.
“Sixteen witnesses spoke in favor of designation, and two persons were recorded against designation.”
Further reading
- Flatbush Town HallWikipedia
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